Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Ephraim and Manasseh- Does God Have Favorites?
There are stories in our Sacred Books (in
my case the Bible) which seem strange, unintelligible, or which make us at
least wonder why they found their way into the narrative. One such stories can
be found in Genesis 48: Jacob, the patriarch, is at the end of his life, so
Joseph, his son, takes time off his busy schedule as prime minister of Egypt
and goes to Goshen to visit him. He brings along his two boys Manasseh the
elder and Ephraim the younger. After some chit-chatting it is time to leave and
Joseph asks granddad to bless the boys: so far a very typical family scene,
which could happen in my own home country. So Jacob, with the two lads on his
lap, proceeds to lay hands on them, but not before crossing his arms. Joseph
assumes his father is simply losing his eye sight, so he seeks to readjust him,
since by crossing his hands, his right is now resting on Ephraim, the younger,
and surely that could not be his intention (which is why Joseph had carefully
placed Manasseh on Jacob’s right side, and Ephraim on the left).
This is where the story kicks in, when
Jacob replies, referring to Manasseh: “I know, my son, I know; he also shall
become a people, and he also shall be great; nevertheless his younger brother
shall be greater than he.” In other words Jacob had intentionally disregarded
venerable Middle Eastern tradition of firstborn sons and seniority and set the
younger before the older. Not much is reported about either the boys’ or
Joseph’s reaction, just that it happened.
I hope you are just as intrigued as I am
why this story appears in the Bible. Is it simply to tell us that in his old
age, like so many men before and after him, Jacob had become stubborn and
somewhat unpredictable? Or that small actions, intentional or not, have large
consequences? In order to shed some light on the story it is worth remembering
Joseph’s own life, which is the subject of the previous ten chapters or so.
Joseph was the second youngest in his family and the first son born to Jacob by
Rachel, his first-love. As such he is his father’s favorite, a fact that Jacob
does not hide: he dotes on the boy and makes him a special coat. And Joseph
seems to have an unusual prophetic gift in that God speaks to him through
dreams.
Chapters 37-47 tell how this special
attention by Jacob and God himself works out for Joseph: his brothers want to
kill him, but in the end relent and sell him off into slavery. There he rises
to power, gets wrongfully imprisoned and eventually makes a career in Pharaohs
court. In other words, it seems true that he is special, but that being special
gets him into lots of trouble. So what must go to Josephs mind when he sees
Ephraim singled out before Manasseh? Is he delighted that God has made his
choice clear once more, or is he concerned that brotherly feuds, just resolved
with his own brothers, will continue to smolder in the next generation?
Joseph’s story is, in some ways, not
particularly unusual, except for the dramatic details. Being the parents’ or
the teachers favorite happens to people regularly, and with it often comes the
envy and jealousy of those who are left out. Social sciences tell us that a key
factor in human satisfaction is comparison: we are happy if we exceeded our
expectations, if we did better than last time or if we beat somebody we
measured ourselves against. It’s not the nice car that makes me happy, but the
fact that it’s bigger than my neighbors or colleagues SUV. Thus we compare
ourselves all the time, especially with our siblings. So how would we feel if
we had Joseph as our brother, or if we had just witnessed granddad picking our
brother over us? Or, even worse, how do we feel when we perceive somebody else
being blessed by God, while we still wait for him to fulfill his promise to us?
The story of Joseph is instructive in
this regard as well. Joseph starts off as a spoiled brat and for a moment we
think he almost deserves the harsh treatment by his brothers. But as the story
continues the brat turns into a man who seems to survive hardships without a
chip on his shoulders. After Jacobs death Josephs brothers fear that he will
now take vengeance upon them. Josephs reply to their concern is striking: “As
for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good…” In other words he
is able to read his history with spiritual eyes, and with those eyes he sees
that God managed to use the hardships he endured for his own good and that of
many others.
The lesson of the incident of Manasseh
and Ephraim being blessed by Jacob does not seem to be that we should encourage
sibling rivalry; rather we need to accept the fact that gene pool, upbringing, seemingly
well-meaning grandparents, circumstances and providence all conspire to give us
a unique life, with its own blessings and its particular challenges. Most human
beings are wired to compare their lives with that of relevant comparison
groups: their siblings, peers, neighbors, colleagues, and if it seems that they
do less well than them, they are frustrated, envious, despondent or angry. So
chances are that we too find the grass greener on the other side and thus evaluate
other people’s jobs, marriages, and lives as more desirable than our own. Will
we give into sibling rivalry like Josephs brothers? Will we be eaten up by
resentment or jealousy? Or are we able to look at our life with spiritual eyes,
like Joseph, and embrace it as just the right one for us? In that case we might
even discover that God has treated us as special…like Ephraim.
# posted by tino @ Tuesday, January 31, 2017 
